Singapore Airlines (SIA) has achieved Envirotainer’s Qualified Envirotainer Provider Training and Quality Program (QEP) accreditation. QEP recognises carrier’s proficiency and capability in managing Envirotainer’s temperature-controlled container shipments in accordance with industry standards. SIA is the first airline to be accredited in South East Asia, and selected stations in the Airline’s network received their accreditation in the third quarter of this year. Envirotainer’s QEP accreditation provides additional reassurance to customers of SIA’s reliable and safe handling of pharmaceutical products. It also helps to position SIA to better serve the pharmaceutical sector, especially in the current Covid-19 climate. As of today, Europe and Asia-Pacific stations of SIA have received QEP accreditation: • Europe: Zurich (ZRH), Basel (BSL), Amsterdam (AMS), Brussels (BRU) • Asia-Pacific: Singapore (SIN), Melbourne (MEL), Sydney (SYD), Auckland (AKL), Osaka (KIX), Bangalore (BLR), Bombay (BOM) “The QEP program and its participants serve to ensure the quality of life of the patient”, said Chris Fore, Senior Cold Chain Advisor at Envirotainer, in adding, “QEP is both a benchmark and a means by which we engage our partners to provide consistent service and fulfill Good Distribution Practice requirements from pharmaceutical companies.” Chin Yau Seng, Senior Vice President – Cargo, SIA, says, “SIA is committed to continuous improvement of our capabilities in transporting pharmaceutical products. Getting Envirotainer’s QEP accreditation is an important validation of our capabilities, especially given the importance of getting pharmaceuticals, and eventually Covid-19 vaccines, safely and swiftly to customers during this pandemic. We will continue to ensure the quality and reliability of handling pharmaceutical cargo shipments across our network, while also looking for new ways to further enhance our THRUCOOL service.” Launched in September 2018, SIA’s THRUCOOL cold chain service …

Nippon Express has launched its ‘NEX-SPEED Super-Fast! Atlanta’ high-speed consolidated service for air cargo being shipped out of Haneda Airport in Japan to the southeastern US via Atlanta Airport. It is a direct service that transports airfreight on direct flights from Japan to the US — and cargo destined for delivery within 300km of Atlanta is delivered on the same day.‘NEX-SPEED Super-Fast! Atlanta’ achieves the fastest shipping time available by loading cargo conveyed to Haneda Airport in the morning onto a direct flight bound for Atlanta that same day; once the cargo arrives at Atlanta Airport, the Atlanta Branch of Nippon Express USA, Inc., promptly takes receipt of the cargo from the airline’s terminal. Nippon Express is the only forwarder with a work facility handling both domestic and international cargo inside Haneda Airport, allowing it to sort cargo arriving on domestic flights within the airport and then load the cargo aboard international flights. The company has its own facility（CFS） in close proximity to Atlanta Airport, and this, combined with the (optional) emergency delivery service offered by the Atlanta Branch, enables same-day delivery. With operations at both the departure and arrival points being handled in-house, lead time is about a day and a half less than that of Nippon Express’s conventional services. Cargo arriving at Atlanta Airport can be delivered that same day within a radius of approximately 300km from Atlanta, an area that covers most of Georgia and Alabama as well as portions of other neighboring states. Nippon Express will be continuing to develop services that meet emergency transport needs and endeavoring to optimize customers’ supply chains.

In light of the global pandemic, the 10th Asian Logistics, Maritime and Aviation Conference (ALMAC), an annual signature event for the industries jointly organised by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), will go online for the first time. The conference will be held online on November 17-18. Themed “Capturing Opportunities Amidst Volatility”, over 40 luminaries from the logistics, maritime and aviation sectors will share their insights towards industries’ prospect and business opportunities. Running on November 17 and 18 under the theme “Capturing Opportunities Amidst Volatility”, ALMAC Online will focus on three key areas – rebuilding supply chain resilience under the new normal, Asia’s evolving role in global supply chains, and the trendsetting technologies and innovations for reinvigorating logistics operation and management – to help industries navigate through a challenging business environment. More than 40 leaders from the logistics, maritime and aviation sectors will share their insights at the event, which is expected to attract around 2,000 industry elites from 25 countries and regions. “The COVID-19 pandemic is creating significant obstacles to the global business environment, making this an unsettling year for the logistics, maritime and aviation industries. For the 10th iteration of ALMAC, we have created a brand-new online platform – the first time the HKTDC has ever staged its flagship conference online which is a new experience without geographical boundaries,” said HKTDC Deputy Executive Director Patrick Lau. “Industry representatives, professionals and stakeholders from across the globe will be able to participate and interact during the online conference. Industry leaders and experts will share their valuable experiences and strategies on supply chain resilience in the new normal and …

Kale Logistics Solutions (Kale) has completed a decade in offering IT solutions and simplifying operations for the logistics industry globally. Incorporated in 2010, the company is headquartered in India with regional branches and subsidiaries in USA, Canada, Netherlands, UAE, Kenya and Mauritius and serves more than 4500 satisfied customers in 29 countries. Rajesh Panicker, COO, Kale Logistics Solutions, says, “What we are witnessing right now is the start of our long and rapid growth journey, where we are shifting gears for enterprises to build cloud-based foundations that will serve as a resilient, secure and scalable digital core. Our success is a huge endorsement of the increased relevance of our solutions and services to our clients as they pivot to digital simplification and future-ready technologies. Accessibility and touchless are becoming important attributes for solution design and our platforms continue to gain traction as they enhance enterprises’ digital capability to respond and recover from the pandemic.” Expressing his delight over completion of 10 years, Amar More, CEO, Kale Logistics Solutions says, “It is a great pleasure to be in the business of logistics and Kale in this decade has witnessed rapid growth. From a humble beginning, Kale is now a preferred global partner for logistics enterprise automation and community platforms. We envision that in the new normal, successful enterprises have to be purpose-driven, autonomous, and highly adaptive in order to drive innovation and to best serve their customers and employees.” Vineet Malhotra, Director, Kale Logistics Solutions said, “We have always maintained that growth is the best margin lever, and that is very evident in our journey. It is very gratifying to see that what we laid-down as a foundation keystone – digital …

Warburg Pincus-backed logistics real estate firm ESR India has signed an agreement with Maharashtra government to invest Rs4,310 crore to set up 11 industrial and logistics parks around Mumbai and Pune. This affiliation with the Maharashtra government is aimed at encouraging industrial development in the state with streamlined land acquisition and administrative processes. The policy and regulatory reforms unveiled in recent times has accentuated the entry of international institutional players and has set new benchmarks for industrial developments in the country. Abhijit Malkani and Jai Mirpuri, Country Heads, ESR India, says, “The Government of Maharashtra and the MIDC (Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation) have been very supportive of our efforts to develop world-class industrial and logistics infrastructure in the state, and these MoUs will fast-track investment into these projects, accelerate their development, and help attract more multinational and national companies to Maharashtra.” These parks, once fully operational, have the potential to create over 35,000 jobs in the state.

In a bid to include its new Pegasus passive container, AirBridgeCargo (ABC) Airlines has expanded its Master Lease Agreement with Sonoco ThermoSafe. The new ULD offers tracking and data capturing, recording everything from temperature to tilt, and can carry pharma shipments up to 998 kg. It maintains the temperature range from 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. The airline said that because of a two-fold surge in healthcare shipments, which tipped over 40,000 tonnes, for the first eight months of 2020 and the industry prep for COVID-19 vaccines transportation, it has been strengthening its relations with container lease providers, expanding the number of passive and active container options for its customers across the globe. Yulia Celetaria, Global Pharma Director, AirBridgeCargo Airlines, says, “Sonoco ThermoSafe has been able to quickly adjust to the market demands and engineer the new Pegasus ULD, which will be highly appreciated by the Life Science and Healthcare community, especially for large volumes of pharmaceutical shipments.”

With easing of lockdown and revival of economy, cargo throughput at APSEZ rebounded and registered a spectacular growth. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) has announced its operational and financial performance for the second quarter and half year ended September 30, 2020. The growth was across segments and coasts. In the month of October’20 ports excluding Krishnapatnam Port (KPCL) handled cargo volume of 22 MMT which is a growth of 21 per cent on a year on year basis. KPCL the newest port in our portfolio handled cargo volume of 3.2 MMT. For FY21, we expect cargo throughput excluding Krishnapatnam Port to be in the range of 225-230 MMT. In addition Krishnapatnam Port is expected to handle around 20 MMT in H2 FY21. On the back of rebound in economic activities, cargo volume bounced back and registered a phenomenal growth of 36% on a QoQ basis and 7 per cent on a YoY basis. All segments of cargo registered growth on a QoQ basis. While coal registered 30 per cent growth, container grew by 34 per cent, crude by 52 per cent and other bulk cargo registered a growth of 40 per cent. Non-Mundra ports registered a growth of 28 per cent, while Mundra port grew by 40 per cent. Cargo volume at Hazira grew by 45 per cent, Kattupalli by 54 per cent and Dahej by 145 per cent. Registering double digit growth, cargo volume at Dhamra Port increased by 30 per cent on QoQ basis and 21 per cent on YoY basis. LNG and LPG which was added as part of our diversified cargo portfolio in October 2019 gained traction. In Q2 FY21, Mundra Port handled 1,42,000 …

Ecom Express has revealed key highlights of consumer buying pattern across fashion, mobiles and tablets, and medicine categories in the ongoing festive sales. The data has been gathered based on volumes of merchandise assigned to Ecom Express by more than 2000 e-commerce players in the country. The total jump in volume of sales for the same duration in August versus October, including all categories, stood at 72%. Apparels and accessories were the most purchased categories of products in terms of volume share from February to August. In the October sale, this segment saw around 5% increase in share of total volumes and a whopping 200% + increase in growth over its pre-COVID volumes. According to the company, this growth was driven primarily from major cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai. Kolkata’s October sales numbers showed the highest spike, especially in apparel and footwear, capturing on Durga Puja fervour. It reflects that people in Kolkata waited for the festive season, and their preferred choice of gifts this year were apparel, footwear, and accessories. Although Delhi saw a decline in apparel volumes, adjoining cities in the NCR such as Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad contributed significantly to the volumes. Further, mobile, tablets and mobile accessories bounced back post-COVID to show an 89% growth in August. This category remains a strong in a sale promotion-driven category, showing a huge surge during the October festive sales grew by over 210%. While the large cities remain the largest markets for this category overall, smaller cities appeared to drive festive season sales, with customers/re-sellers waiting for sale promotions. High volumes were driven out of small towns like Arrah and Narkatiyagunj (Bihar), Raigarh and Sarangarh …

NebulARC has introduced UBICUO, an AI-enabled Virtual Assistant for organisations helping them to take immediate actions based on detailed workflows, real-time alerts and analytics. The solution aims to help the companies to automate the entire supply chain and make supply chain management even smarter. With the growing need for effective logistics amidst rising customer demand for ecommerce and FMCG companies, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find apt manpower to manage the supply chain functions. Leveraging the AI-enabled virtual assistant is a smart option for companies working towards faster decision making and enhanced experience. Being an innovation-driven company, NebulARC’s virtual assistant – UBICUO allows enterprises to keep a check on inventory, product perishability, supply trends, demand supply ratio etc. It is a cost effective solution that manages warehouse operations and follows up dispatched and stock in hand to inform the production requirements for smarter business decisions. Alok Sharma, CEO & Co-founder, NebulARC said, “Certainly positive about the market sentiment, we are thrilled to introduce one of our most-disruptive logistics solutions for businesses across verticals. Our one-of-a kind virtual assistant – UBICUO has been developed keeping in mind the various constraints that a company faces while managing its logistics be it for B2B shipments or for end-customers. With its unique capabilities, UBICUO will prove to be a key enabler for organisations by helping them to increase their productivity and optimise their operations at a significantly lesser cost. With this resource-saving project we are making yet another substantial effort towards accelerating digital transformation in the logistics space.” NebulARC’s AI-enabled Virtual Assistant not only manages the entire logistics ecosystem but also helps the businesses to significantly reduce risks of theft, pilferage and other …

In a bid to help the mid-sized & small-sized freight forwarders and the CHAs in India to achieve speed and business growth with instant bookings, instant quotation and real-time pricing, Allcargo Logistics has rolled out its the global logistics tool called ECU360 on its digital platform now, in India. The first-of-its-kind online platform primarily focuses on providing agility, cost-effectiveness and quality of services. Using the platform, customers can book their shipments online based on the end-to-end quotes from ECU360. They can track and trace the booked shipments from the point of origination and destination with real-time updates. Powered by Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) technology, ECU360 offers facilities like generation of invoices, e-bills of lading, e-delivery orders and e-payment facilities. In addition, it comes with .SB file upload option, a convenient feature which facilitates autofill of relevant fields in the booking form, making it easier and faster for users to fill up the booking form and complete the booking process, within seconds. The same information then subsequently gets cascaded to the Shipping Instructions page, enabling the customers to complete their online SI submission with the blink of an eyelid, making the process faster. All that the customers need to do is, upload the .sb flat in the digital portal ECU360 and confirm the correctness of the pre-filled details, to be in order. The booking and shipping are entirely automated on this platform. ECU360 launched internationally in 2018 has emerged as the most sought-after online destination for global trade, as it offers door-to-door quotes of more than 55+ countries with pickup and delivery options. Apart from offering comprehensive cargo visibility to the customers throughout the cargo shipping cycle, it leverages a multimodal operational …